Sweet land stories - E. L. Doctorow [18]
I motioned for her to roll down her window: Has it occurred to you, Karen, that you have provided him or them the opportunity?
Gone were all my diplomatic strategies. All the anger that I had pent up cascaded over this sad pathetic girl sitting rocking the baby in her arms, and her pale eyes reddened and enlarged with the tears rolling down her cheeks.
Yes, you have stirred up something really grand, you know that? You have inspired others to do evil, Karen Robileaux. And not only this slime or slimes. Supposing he really had possession of the baby? Is it in the baby’s interest of safety to have the news broadcast all around the country that there is a ransom note? Of course not. How could this slimeball trust them now, these poor parents, thinking they had told everyone about his private communication. What would you do under the circumstances if you couldn’t trust the parents to deal without calling in the cops, the FBI, and the media—I mean this is a goddamn radio station in Los Angeles. Los Angeles! They don’t give a shit if the baby turns up dead. They just want people to listen so they can sell their advertising. They are happy to violate such delicate confidences. They are proud to be good reporters! So the evil is going out in all directions, Karen, like radio waves from an antenna!
He can’t do anything bad to this baby, she sobbed. None of them can. He doesn’t have this baby. I have this baby, she said, kissing the child fervently on the cheeks, on his head, every part of him that was not swaddled.
Well maybe not, I said, quieter now. But how do the Wilsons know that? He has already done something to them when they find out he is a fraud and a hoax and they are who knows how many thousands of dollars poorer. And not only that, I said more to myself than to her, everyone thinks now you have an accomplice, a male accomplice, because no woman alone who stole a child would do it for purposes of ransom.
Karen opened the door and stepped out of the van and handed me Baby Wilson, and then went off a ways on the shoulder behind a tree and lifted her dress and squatted down to pee.
I had not held him before to any extent. He was a warm little fellow. I could feel his heart beat, and he squirmed around a bit trying to look at me who was holding him. And he had stopped crying.
When Karen came back she took Baby Wilson and got back in the van and sat there frowning and staring straight ahead and she wasn’t crying anymore, either. It was like she was waiting for the car to move, as if it really didn’t need a driver to get up there beside her and put the key in the ignition.
A FEW MILES on at the edge of a town I pulled into a gas station with a convenience store. I bought us bottled water and presented one to Karen by way of a peace offering. Without looking at me she took it. I bought the newspapers they carried, the local and the L.A. and San Diego papers. They all had the story, they were blissed-out with excitement. And every story came with a composite police drawing of someone who looked like Karen though with her ears grown bigger and her mouth thinner and her eyes transplanted from someone else. It was both not a good likeness and too close for comfort.
I tossed the papers away. I didn’t feel the need to show her anything more by way of persuasion. She had no voice in the matter as far as I was concerned. We drove on and this turned out to be a well-groomed little town, with big trees shading the streets and the retail stores uniformly in good taste so as not to offend the eye. And there was nobody in sight, as if the townsfolk were having their afternoon nap, even the police.
It hit me then, my idea: If the story was in every paper, if it was all over the damn state, did it matter where we dropped off Baby Wilson? And I thought, Why not here? And if not now,